PALS Spring Gathering 2026

Let's Talk About
Vibe Coding

Using natural language to prompt AI tools to generate, debug, and evolve code — no CS degree required.

Scott Kaihoi University of St. Thomas
01
Audience Participation

What is your Experience?

Live Slido Poll
02
The Concept

What Is Vibe Coding?

Describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI tool write the code for you.

💬

Natural Language In

You describe what you want — a webpage, a game, a tool — in your own words. No syntax required.

💻

Working Code Out

The AI generates functional code — from small CSS fixes to entire applications and interactive sites.

03
A Brief History

Where the Term Came From

"There's a new kind of coding I call 'vibe coding,' where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists."

— Andrej Karpathy, Co-founder of OpenAI · X post February 2025

Early LLMs could generate code snippets, but by 2025 the capability had evolved to writing full programs — and the term stuck.

04
The Process

How It Works

Imagine

Think of something you'd like to build — a webpage, interactive activity, game, or tool.

Describe

Write a detailed natural-language description for an AI tool. Clarity here saves iteration later.

Generate

The AI produces code — anything from a stylesheet tweak to a complete application.

Iterate

Review, refine, and ask for changes. Vibe coding is conversational — you build in rounds.

Ship

Host your creation and share it — in a GitHub repository or a platform like Lovable with built-in hosting.

05
Personal Experience

My Journey

Early experiments at Bethel

Used early LLMs to generate small CSS snippets for web maintenance tasks — results were mixed, but promising.

Inspiration from librarians

Encountered colleagues vibe coding custom websites for library instruction and presentations — the results were impressive and effective.

Diving in at UST

Fired up Claude to see how hard it would be to create my own instruction tools. Turns out — very doable.

06
Projects

What I've Built

Four projects created through vibe coding — we'll look at each one live.

07
Practical Advice

Tips to Get Started

Start simple

Pick something you can visualize clearly — a game, an activity, a single-page site.

Be precise in your prompt

Code generation is resource-intensive. Invest time upfront describing exactly what you want and don't want — you can even use an LLM to refine your prompt first.

Use the best model available

More capable models produce better, more reliable code in fewer tries.

Plan to learn

You'll encounter unknowns — file structure, programming languages, deployment. Ask the LLM to explain step by step, then verify with your own sources.

Own what you don't know

Build a relationship with your ITS team. You don't want to create security problems on your machine or in your web presence.

Keep things organized

Version your projects. Label iterations clearly. You will want to roll back at some point — make sure you can.

08
Be Aware

Some Limitations

🪙

Token & Credit Limits

Even paid plans have ceilings. Free tiers run out fast. Plan your sessions and budget accordingly.

🧠

Your Own Knowledge

AI works best when it enhances existing expertise. For critical tasks, ensure you have the skills to evaluate whether outputs are safe and of high quality.

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Context Awareness

By default, AI doesn't know your LMS restrictions, campus security policies, university branding guidelines, or system configurations.

🌐

Hosting & Access

Unless you use a platform with built-in hosting, you'll need to figure out how to make your creation accessible to others.

09
Get Started

Tools to Try

A few places to start experimenting:

10
Prompt Brainstorming

Example Prompts

Here are the starting prompts behind each project demoed in this presentation. These are not perfect prompts and none produced a final, unedited result, but they each produced a solid first draft. Click to expand and see the full prompt text for each.

Wrapping Up

Now Go Build Something

You don't need to be a developer. You just need a clear idea and the willingness to iterate. The tools are ready — are you?